And by the same logic Protestants who support marriage equality should vote Sinn Fein. Who is Poots trying to f**king kid? :-D

gingerlycolors

I was just thinking exactly the same thing! The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

Himself. The phuckin idiot thinks the Earth is only six thousand years old ffs!. He said so on Question Time on BBC two years ago That is our Health Minister….. and he is what pass’ for “smart” in the DUP

Cal

Dream on. Memories are too long. Northern Ireland’s Irish are not going to vote for their oppressors on this or any other issue.
Anyway, it’s only a matter of time before the bigoted Unionists are brought into line.

daveG

This is itself a bigoted and sectarian comment. The Ulster protestants are also Irish, by the way. They come from and live in Ireland.

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

Tell them that ….. if you dare! The louts and bigots common in Irish protestantism are about as Irish as I am Cockney.

daveG

What are they if not Irish then? Indonesian? Taiwanese? Here’s a truth: if someone comes from somewhere, and many past generations of their family did too, then that’s where they come from. A few far-sighted Irish people (eg Mary Robinson) have recognized that, and one day they will have to be accommodated within Ireland.

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

I not disputing what you say, but try telling that to those you are talking about and you are very likely to get a hammering….They hate being referred to as Irish! Paisley had to be restrained some years ago when he was referred to as Irish in the Commons… Of course anyone born here is Irish and those who have sought citizenship here are also Irish, like for instance Anna Lo or any of the Muslims insulted a week or so ago by the first Minister Peter Robinson, who has often said he himself isn’t Irish, even though several generations of his family were born here. He says he is British, which is rubbish, as he was not born on the Island of Britain. Anyone born on the island of Ireland is Irish, regardless of which jurisdiction they were born in on the Island.

Cal

They live on the island of Ireland and are violently and peculiarly attached to the British Crown. They feel this way because they consider themselves superior to the indigenous Irish that they have persecuted for centuries. There is no escaping this shameful history. Nor is there any expression of regret from these neanderthal monsters. Not all Northern Irish Protestants are like this but those in the Orange Order and those that vote Unionist cannot pretend to be non-sectarian.

Barry Scarfe

Yes, they are Irish but they consider themselves to be British-Irish and not ‘purely’ Irish which is why they want to be a part of United Kingdom. The island is split in its national identities/loyalties and has been for at least the last 90 years if not considerably longer.

People in the 26 counties have an Irish-Catholic-Gaelic identity and consequently don’t feel any connection to the people in NI or to people on this island.

daveG

So what, they are still Irish. Britain is a liberal multi-racial country – nothing like them.

Barry Scarfe

If Ireland were reunited without the full-hearted consent of people in both the six counties and the twenty-six there would be trouble again. I gather that the Protestant Ulster-Scot pro-British population in what is now NI were very proud to be Irish before partition in 1922 and indeed quite a few of them even spoke Irish Gaelic but since the independence of the South they no longer feel comfortable describing themselves as Irish. Sinn Fein in the South and in the North didn’t help matters. Up until very recently they promoted a vision of Irish identity that pretty much excluded anyone who was a Protestant and non-Gaelic in their identity.

It’s a tragedy in many ways that the British government didn’t impose home rule on Ireland around one hundred years ago as then the whole island may have become comfortable being a devolved part of the United Kingdom and people in both parts would be ok with a mixed British-Irish identity just like many Welsh and Scots are ok with being both Welsh, Scottish and British.

Cal

Britain will have to give up its hold on Ulster at some point as they have other colonies. Successive British Governments have held no affection for the backward fools who run NI and would love to dump them. Ah, unrequited love! Unionists have had their ignorant, triumphalist way for too long and things will turn against them. Who in the world has any respect for these people?

Barry Scarfe

There is one small problem with what you have said here ie Northern Ireland is NOT SOME FORM OF ‘COLONY’. It is an INTEGRAL PART of the United Kingdom itself BY THE MAJORITY WILL OF ITS PEOPLE.

I deplore the backward stance of too many Loyalists and others in NI against gays and bisexuals and believe a great deal of it is because NI is more religious than other parts of the United Kingdom. Hopefully, NI will become more secular soon and those attitudes will change to more enlightened ones as they have done in our parts of the UK.

Cal

The definition of colonise is “to send settlers to a place and establish political control over it”. This is exactly what happened in Ireland. To save face, Churchill refused to give up Ulster when the rest of Ireland was rightly returned to its people after years of murderous tyranny. The Protestants in NI then ran a system of Apartheid until the the British government were forced to negotiate after the situation got out of control. This is a matter of record. Their hatred is not based on religion. It is about power and oppression.
Until the 1970s most ads for jobs were accompanied by the letters NCNA (No Catholic Need Apply) Yes, the Scottish and English invaders overpowered the indigenous people in Ulster. Yes, there are just a few more of them. But for how long? And do you think, when the corrupt and ignorant rule of the Orangemen is over, that they will accept a united Ireland if that is the will of the majority? No, they will stab, shoot and bomb as they fall into oblivion.

Barry Scarfe

I think homophobia and biphobia are more prevalent than they are in the Republic. The Republic seems to have made a great deal of progress with regard to this issue and they are even going to have a referendum on same-sex civil marriage next year.

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

the north of Ireland is also liberal and multi racial … well half of it anyway. However a certain section of our community, who refer to themselves as “British” would rather we weren’t multi racial. It is the racism coming from the Unionists (British) That has made Anna Lo of the Alliance Party consider leaving NI because of the racism she has suffered from the Unionists/loyalists. The Nationalist community in the North of Ireland are not in any way racist and there has been NO racism from that quarter. The Unionists/ loyalists have now substituted racism for the sectarianism of the past and have turned their hatred on immigrants instead!

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

..not forgetting of course, the almost one million Irish-Nationalist-Gaelic original inhabitants of what is now “Northern” Ireland. We identify with the Irish Republic and are culturally identical in every way; sport, music etc…

Barry Scarfe

I am not disputing that is the case but the people of the loyalist community don’t identify with the community of whom you are a part and with the people of the Republic. In short, therefore, NI is divided between two communities one of which identifies with the Republic and the other with the rest of the United Kingdom.

I suspect the loyalist community would only identify with your community and with the Republic if the whole island of Ireland became a constituent part of the United Kingdom as it once was.

daveG

Interesting that homophobia should even trump religious bigotry in these twisted peoples’ tiny minds. A pathetic grab for votes at the expense yet again of a scapegoated minority. A brave and decent non-sectarian Belfast local politician of chinese origin has just stepped down due to the endless racism and disrespect she has been subjected to by politicians from bigot-dominated parties. Its a beautiful landscape and has some fine historic towns, but 16 years after the peace process NI remains a religious and political toilet.

Truth

Mind you, it’sthe same in the States.? A family will happily sit together and watch films in which Arnold Schwarzenegger films blows people to smithereens… but you showed two men kissing … and there is a universal outrage. Murder is more acceptable than homosexual love? Prople are WEIRD …. especially those brainwashed by religion.

Steven Gregory

I dated a guy who reviewed film. It would infuriate him how violence got a pass from the MPAA, but homosexuality started at PG and any physical contact or nudity pushed the rating off the charts.

Truth

Many Brits believe that Americans’ sense of humour is incapable of processing ‘irony’. Certainly, where the acceptance of movie violence versus homosexuality is concerned, it’s true.

Truth

Truly amazing. The homophobic bigotry of these people obviously knows NO bounds! They are SO homophobic, they even appear ready to overlook the death and destruction of ‘the troubles’ to have catholics join sides with them against the gays. I’m sorry – but that is just really outrageous. Disgusting, hate-filled bigots.

AndyAS

Just another strand in a very long disgusting thread – the Northern Ireland Office [(mostly) English Civil Servants and English Tory and Labour politicians during Direct Rule] were only too keen to use homophobia for political ends … constant attempts the get the Catholic hierarchy to make anti-Gay statements in the hope it would unite Catholic and Protestant. Shameful …. utterly shameful!!!!

Truth

Yep – it’s a ‘unifying’ tactic used by despots over and over. Hitler did it, Putin is doing it as are many leaders of failing political regimes in Africa. Little men with too much power will always seek to blame easy scapegoats for their own inadequacy as a means of galvanising support. They ALWAYS fail.

MajellaMcCarron

I concur!

Alexander Kelso Shiels

Where did these people get their education for it seems to me they are subhuman or even bacterial waste with no idea of how the world works!

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

They are usually badly educated because back in the day they considered themselves the top dog and if there was a job going they were guaranteed to get it over a Catholic/Nationalist, educated or not. That mentality still pervades and most, if not all Unionist/loyalist boys drop out of school by sixteen. It is a much discussed problem here. The majority of Nationalist boys do well in school and often go on to Grammar schools and then University. Do a straw poll of proffessions in the north and you will find that the majority of Doctors, pharmacists, chemists, engineers, Lawyers etc are all from the nationalist side. That mentality also goes back to “in the day”, because they had to emigrate and if you wanted a good job in the US, Canada or wherever you had to be educated, so they were. We still produce the best school results in Europe to this day, but most of those schools are in nationalist/catholic aeeas….. This has also caused not a little “they get everything” mentality form the Unionists/loyalists….

AndyAS

What a VILE, STUPID, PREJUDICED BIGOT!!!! This man is TOTALLY unfit for government.

Thing is, very few if any Irish “Catholics”,are anti Marriage Equality or indeed anti Gay. (I put catholics on inverted commas because very few are practising any more especially since the Paedophile scandal in the RC Church). That is totally down to the Unionist/loyalists. The very same people who are so bigoted and hate filled in the so called “red” states in the US. Full cousins of this crowd here. The only people voting against marriage Equality in Ulster are the DUP,, homophobic Bigots all….

ian123

Imagine how obsessed you would have to be to vote in a way that you would not normally vote in order to deny people the chance of some happiness?

Bish Chan

If the biggest problem in your life is that gay couples can get married, your life is going pretty good imo.

Jesus_Mohammed

Edwin Poots reaches out to Catholics who “are supportive of the doctrines of their Church”. To be supportive of “a doctrine”! Poots is clearly so indoctrinated himself that he does not even SEE the danger of the doctrines of the religious cults. The word “doctrine” does not even concern him.

Rumbelow

That’s indoctrination for you!

David Greensmith

Aside from the fact that I kept reading his surname as “Poofs” – Ooh. Which bigotry is going to triumph? Sectarian or homophobia. Appeal to the lowest common denominator, much?

Steven Gregory

“Poots” sounds flatulent, like “shart.”

de Villiers

Marcel Poot was a famous Belgian classical music composer and music Professor of counterpoint and harmony who lived 1901 to 1988.

J.

GB has no idea just how much the DUP purposely set out to be anti-gay although this article gives quite a good indication. If there are any Catholic people who’ve supported the IRA and even killed Protestants, but happened to also be anti-gay, their murderous past would be considered less ‘evil’ by the DUP because of that. To the DUP, homosexuality is much worse than murder – and also child sex abuse. Iris Robinson, when an MP, said in Parliament that there is nothing worse than paedophilia other than homosexuality. Being the NI First Minister’s wife she is, I suppose, the NI ‘First Lady’! I was brought-up a Protestant but as an religion-free adult I support Sinn Fein and the Greens because they are the only parties that can be consistently trusted re. gay rights.

Pádráig O’Gáirmléadháigh

This morons statement is proof that the DUP knows nothing about it’s Catholic neighbours, otherwise he would no that there are very few what he calls “socially conservative catholics” and there haven’t been for a long long time, well before the revelations that the RC church was actually a cover for the worlds biggest paedophile club. I seriously doubt that any catholic/nationalist will be voting DUP. They have been exposed as homophobic bigots and that is not something most right thinking (thinking being the operative word here) Irish people aspire to…..

Rumbelow

“The doctrines of their Church largely coincide with the DUP. So conservative Protestantism and conservative Catholicism are an awful lot.”

http://www.derekwilliams.net Derek Williams

More Catholics support LGBT equality than any other denomination, and more than the general public:

PinkNews covers religion, politics, entertainment, finance, and community news for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the UK and worldwide. Founded to produce broadsheet quality journalism for the LGBT community, we cover politics to theology in an intelligent manner.